Migrants’ Death At Saudi Border

Recently, the media were awash with reports of mass killing of migrants along the Saudi-Yemeni border allegedly perpetrated by Saudi Arabian guards. Already, the brutality of that reported act appalls the world.

A new report released by the Human Rights Watch said that hundreds of people, many of them Ethiopians who crossed war-torn Yemen to reach Saudi Arabia, were shot dead. The horrifying bloodshed is reported to have become a consistent pattern of large –scale killing even as Saudi Arabia has previously denied allegations of systematic killings.

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, titled ‘They Fired on Us like Rain,’ revealed sad tales from migrants who said they were shot at and sometimes targeted with explosive weapons by Saudi police and soldiers on Yemen’s rugged northern border with Saudi Arabia.

The report, which covers the period from March 2022 to June this year, details 28 separate incidents involving explosive weapons and 14 of shootings at close range.

A very chilling account of a night-time crossing in one instance disclosed that large groups of Ethiopians, including many women and children, came under fire as they attempted to cross the border in search of work in the oil-rich kingdom.

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Many of those killed in such dastardly manner have passed through months of perilous journeys replete with danger, starvation, and extortion in the hands of Yemeni and Ethiopian smugglers only to end up being shot by the Saudi security or badly injured to the point they have become useless to themselves and depending on their families and charity organisations.  

According to the United Nations (UN’s) International Organization for Migration, tens of thousands of people a year attempt  the dangerous journey, crossing by sea from the Horn of Africa to Yemen and then travelling on to Saudi Arabia. This is similar to the dangerous journey by irregular migrants into Europe through the deserts of North Africa and across the Mediterranean Sea through the island of Lampedusa in Italy.

Stories about makeshift boats crammed with migrants capsizing and a great number of people perishing are now familiar.  Last week more than 24 migrants were reported missing after a shipwreck off the coast of Djibouti.

The most horrific episode of these ugly incidents in Yemen was the graphic detail that the main migrant routes are littered with the graves of people who have been killed along the way. Rotting corpses were reportedly scattered throughout the border area. Captured migrants were sometimes subjected to inhuman treatment before they were shot and some of these issues may have been under-reported because of the difficulty of tracking down survivors.

Although the Saudi government said it took the allegations seriously but strongly rejected the UN’s characterisation that the killings were systematic or large-scale.  Still, the  fact was further corroborated last month by the Mixed Migration Centre, a global research network, which published further allegations of killings along the border, based on its own interviews with survivors.

We are compelled to demand for a full scale interrogation of this continuing brutality and press for a thorough investigation into the matter by the United Nations. If the authorities in Saudi Arabia are found complicit in this deplorable behaviour then the world body must impose severe penalties on the Kingdom.

There is nothing wrong with migration, at least it is a global phenomenon. The challenge is in citizens of different countries fleeing crisis in their own countries and ending up using irregular means of seeking asylum into places that they desire. Not many countries will tolerate this but when they resort to this interminable brutality to address the situation that is when it becomes condemnable.

People seeking asylum or economic opportunities must be treated with dignity and their sanctity of lives preserved. There are better ways to stop people from irregular migration to Saudi Arabia or any other country that faces such a crisis. We are appalled that a country such as Saudi Arabia, which prides itself as the bastion of human civilisation with its illustrious history of the virtue associated with the protection of lives will resort to these bestial acts.  This is unacceptable and the world must rise with one voice not only to condemn it but to take appropriate action to stop it.

Another issue we consider  is the fact that  the difficult   situation  in most African countries which has imposed enormous  hardship on the people has triggered  this craving to seek greener pastures elsewhere. This has resulted to apparent desperation to migrate into countries considered  relatively  peaceful with higher prospects of economic  opportunities.

In our considered opinion, African leaders must learn to build modern economies that will provide jobs for the growing number of youths in the country through massive investment in human capital development. There should also be a renewed orientation of the youth that the grass is not always greener outside as they erroneously believe.